


The Dolly Project

by ohthislove (orphan_account)



Category: Barry (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassins & Hitmen, Cheating, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Slow Burn, get ready for some wild ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-25 17:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ohthislove
Summary: When Barry is assigned a hit by Goran and Hank, he swears it's his last one. That's when he meets Violet - cold, hard, cynical. Opposite to him in almost every way, and yet so similar. She's an assassin just like him, only better, and she seems to fixate on him just as much as he does her.The only problem? She's the hit.





	1. Prologue

### Prologue

It was dark out, the only light coming from the street lamps lined up and down the street casting pools of warm, amber glow onto the sidewalk. Barry did his best work in the dark. It was the only way he could cope with the things that he did: if no one saw it, and if he could hardly see it himself.

He stalked down the street like a shadow, glancing from side to side to make sure that no one was lurking about, not that he expected anyone to be. It was one in the morning in a quaint, little neighborhood. Everyone would surely be asleep by now. _But not for long,_ he thought to himself. _Not for long._

He could make out Ryan's truck parked at the curb in front of his apartment complex, just as he had done yesterday. The steady thrum of the engine filled the silence, and the muffled sound of the radio drifted out of the open window. Barry's footsteps echoed as he rounded the rear of the truck, drawing closer to the driver's side. The beating of his heart sped up until all he could hear were his ragged breaths and the rushing of blood in his ears. He tightened his grip on the gun in his hand and drew in a sharp breath before reaching for the door handle.

Barry froze when he saw Ryan slumped in the driver's seat, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. A single stream of dark red blood flowed out of the wound and down the side of his nose, dripping off his chin. His fake tanned skin looked waxy, and his dull, gray eyes were out of focus. Barry tore his gaze away from Ryan's lifeless body and focused on the windshield. There was a single bullet hole in the middle, splintering the glass in cracks that reached the edges.

He turned his head to see a car positioned down the street. How he had not noticed it before was an enigma to him. Noho Hank sat in the passenger's seat, and a Chechen he didn't recognize was next to him behind the wheel. A man wielding a sniper rifle stood out of the sun roof, struggling to reload it.

Barry started walking towards the car. "What's going on, guys?"

"Now, now, now!" Hank stuck his arm out of the window and banged on the roof of the car. "Take the shot! Shoot him now!"

"Hey!" He didn't sound urgent or panicked, more disappointed at what he knew he was going to have to do. "Don't pull that gun on me, man."

Hank continued to rush the man, who was frantically scrambling to load the magazine into the gun. Barry raised his gun and aimed it directly at him, gloved fingers curled around the trigger. But before Barry could pull it, the sound of bullets whizzing through the air cut him off. The first one hit the man in the sunroof square in the forehead. His eyes rolled back into his head before he fell forward, splattering blood across the glass and hanging halfway out of the car. The rifle slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground noisily. The last two pierced the windshield, and then everything fell eerily silent.

Barry stared at the car, his jaw dropped so low that it nearly smacked the pavement. Whoever had made those shots had done so neatly and precisely, with expertise marksmanship, and from very, very far away.

He raised his gaze and spotted the perpetrator on the rooftop of a building a few blocks away. In the dark, he could just barely make out a slim figure with a hood pulled over their head that concealed their face from view. They stood tall and stoic like a marble statue and blended in with the inky indigo, starless sky around them. For a second, he swore he could feel the figure's gaze on him, and every muscle in his body tensed as he was sure he was next. But in the next second, the figure vanished into obscurity, leaving no trace behind besides three bullet holes and two corpses. As if they had never been there at all.

"Fuck."


	2. Double-Cross

# Act One

### Chapter One: Double-Cross

"You couldn't fucking hear me? Huh?" Fuches's shouts bounced off of the garage walls and pierced Barry's eardrum. "I was screaming at you! What the fuck?"

"I was on the phone, and..." Barry mumbled and was cut off by a sigh of exasperation from Fuches.

"You know, Barry, I have to be honest. I'm quite a bit angry," Noho Hank stood before them, a pained smile on his face, "but I'm going to put that aside for now because rage is counterproductive, yes? And I know if the situation were reversed, I probably would've done same thing you did."

"You did do what I did," he stated matter-of-factly. "You tried to kill me."

"Okay, well, now we're getting a little 'he said, she said.'" He chuckled and stepped closer to them. "Uh, okay, so, Barry," he got down on one knee with a groan, "after you were finished shooting me, right? And I had lost consciousness, did you perhaps take something out of the car?" He kept his voice low so only Barry could hear him.

He shook his head. "No."

"No? Like specifically off the dashboard maybe?"

"No."

"Small blinking item?"

"Wait," Barry furrowed his brow, "you didn't bring that fucking lipstick camera with you, did you?"

Nervous laughter spilled from his lips. "What? No. That would be super crazy, huh?" He rose to his feet as the door to the house creaked open. "This conversation never happened, okay?" he whispered to Barry before turning his attention to the Chechen mob boss walking down the stairs. "Hey, Goran, Barry and Fuches on the silver plate."

Goran stopped at Hank's side. Holding his hands behind his back, he let out a deep exhale as his eyes narrowed at Barry. "You did not think I would find you? Two of my men died. One of them, Lucky, was best Chechen assassin."

"Well, he wasn't that great," Barry mumbled under his breath.

"Hey, let's not..." Fuches warned him.

"You put me in big fucking bind, Barry!" He shook his finger at him. "But now, we have found a way for you to repay us."

Barry cocked his head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"The person who killed Lucky was assassin." He crossed his arms over his burly chest, the gold rings on his fingers glinting in the fluorescent lights. "Most likely hired by Bolivians to kill Hank. Fortunately, they missed, but it won't be long before they strike again. Next, they could even try to come after me." He looked at Barry sternly, waiting for him to catch on.

Once Barry saw where they were heading, his eyes widened. "No way."

"Why not?"

"Why would I work for you, man?" he spat. "You double-crossed me. I don't like it when people do that."

"Aw, that's water under bridge," Goran dismissed his statement.

"Have one of these guys do it!" Barry jutted his chin out to the two Chechens standing guard behind him.

He laughed as if Barry had just made a joke. "They are not assassins! They are muscle. Big difference." He rolled his eyes like Barry was stupid.

"Well, have Hank do it," he suggested.

"The assassin fucked him up!"

"Yeah, yeah, this arm is bullshit." He gestured vaguely to his left arm.

"Right, well..." Barry frantically searched the room for some other living being who would be capable for the job besides him. He peered around Goran to see a man hunched over a work bench. "What about that guy?"

Goran glanced over his shoulder to see who Barry was talking about. "Vacha? He is fucking freak."

The man in question – Vacha – turned around and took heavy, solid steps to stand next to Goran. He was significantly shorter than the rest, bald, and had intimidating tattoos of skulls on his arms and a thick chain around his neck. The expression on his face was blank and unreadable as he stared at Barry.

"You see this apron?" Goran gestured to the leather apron Vacha was wearing and quirked a brow. "Why is he wearing that? He doesn't need to be wearing that!" He recoiled and shuddered at his statement. "No, he's too," he paused to search for the right word, "self-consciously scary."

"He's just a lot, you know? It's like... we get it." Hank added.

"No, no, no. I want you to do it, Barry," Goran insisted.

"He wants you to do it, Barry," Fuches repeated, an audible quiver in his voice.

The room fell silent as everyone awaited Barry's answer. He avoided Fuches's gaze. "Yeah, I don't... I don't wanna do this anymore."

"You... you don't wanna..." He could tell Fuches was struggling to wrap his mind around Barry's words. "You don't... what?"

"Yeah, I don't do this anymore." He took a second to swallow any fear he was feeling. "I don't wanna do it."

Fuches's expression twisted into one of disbelief and disappointment. Barry kept his gaze glued to the ground, refusing to meet Fuches's eye. Goran whispered something to Vacha in Russian, and Vacha stepped forward, revealing a file clutched in his nitrile-gloved hand.

"Lucky, man who died, was Vacha's brother," Goran said as Vacha drew worryingly close to Fuches. "Vacha was crying all day. It was very fucking annoying."

"Hey..." Barry watched as one of the Chechen henchmen grabbed Fuches's head, holding him still. "Hey!" The panic in his tone was growing increasingly evident.

Fuches whimpered, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he gulped. Vacha leaned over him and gestured for him to open his mouth. Fuches refused, firmly shaking his head. He did it again, and this time, Fuches relented. The second he did, Vacha stuck the file in his mouth between his teeth.

"Hey, hey, hey! Tell him to stop!" Barry attempted to earn Goran's attention. "Hey, Goran!"

Goran looked up from what Hank was showing him on his phone. "He stops when you agree to job."

"He's gonna file my fucking teeth!" Fuches yelled, his words slurring together because of the file in his mouth. "Say yes!"

Barry lowered his gaze to the ground. Images of Sally's smiling face and the acting class flashed across his mind. He had just gotten it all. Could he really stand to give it up so quickly? "I can't. I'm sorry, I... I can't."

"You can't?" Fuches roared. "You ca-" He was cut off as the other henchmen wrapped his hands around his throat and Vacha began filing. His words melted into shrieks as the file raked over his teeth again and again.

"Hey, tell him to stop!" Barry's pleas were barely audible over Fuches's noises of panic and the squeak of the file against his teeth. "Goran, tell him to stop!" He scooted as far forward in his chair as he could with his hands bound behind his back, the metal legs scraping against the concrete floor. "Tell him to stop!" He could feel his face turning red and the vein in his forehead bulging.

Goran was too preoccupied with whatever was on Hank's phone. "When you hit bubbles, and then more bubbles come down..."

The door opened again, and a woman Goran's age stepped into the garage. The three men hunched over Fuches backed away, turning to look at her over their shoulders like they were kids who had just gotten caught doing something they weren't supposed to. She stomped down the steps and got in Goran's face, telling him off in Russian. Barry couldn't help but feel relieved that she had come in when she had.

"Well, I'm working-" was all Goran managed to get in before he was cut off by the woman's rambling. "Okay, okay," he finally gave in, and the woman shot them a glance before retreating back into the house. Goran turned to address them, "My daughter is having sleepover, and we are being too loud."

Fuches spat, drool dribbling out of the corner of his mouth and staining his shirt. He looked even more of a mess with his beaten and bloodied face.

"Vacha!" Goran gave him a command in Russian, and Vacha whipped out a karambit. He held the curved blade against Fuches's throat. "All right. Yes, or we kill him now."

"Barry," Fuches sobbed, his eyes squeezed shut. "Please, please."

Barry's heart thumped hard in his chest. The air around him felt incredibly hot, and the pressure beat down on him like a hammer. He could feel all the eyes in the room on him. He had no other choice. "All right, fine. I'll do it."

Hank and Goran silently cheered, and Vacha stood down. "That's... this is it," Barry asserted. "No more jobs. This is it. This is the only one. You understand me?" He looked at the Chechens expectantly, and they nodded in confirmation. "So, do you guys have any leads as to who the assassin is, like a name or an address?"

"No clue." Hank shrugged and smiled.

"What?" He wrinkled his brow. "Then how in the hell am I supposed to find them?"

"We'll let you figure that one out." Goran grinned like a crocodile baring his teeth. "We hold onto Fuches until it's done, so get to it."

"Let me just tell you something. If you hurt him any more, if you kill him, anything." Barry tried to summon every single ounce of courage he had left in him. "I'll come back here and I'll kill every single one of you. You understand me?"

There was a moment of silence, and then Hank broke it, "He cares about Fuches. That's just nice."

One of the henchmen walked over and cut Barry free. He stood up and started for the door when Fuches caused him to stop in his tracks. "Barry." He whirled around to face him. "You're gonna get right on this, right?" The look in his eyes was pleading, the expression on his face cold, hard, and dead serious.

Barry stuck his tongue in his cheek and lied through his teeth, "Yes."


	3. I Heard You Were Looking for Me

### Chapter Two: I Heard You Were Looking for Me

Barry trudged down the hallway of the shitty, little hotel he and Fuches were renting a room at. He had just returned from taking Sally to her audition and back, and he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the bed with his script in his hand, but he knew he should get a start on the whole 'assassinate an assassin' thing.

But he had no idea where to start. Maybe he could track the Bolivians for a while. The assassin was bound to get in contact with them sooner or later. Or maybe he could infiltrate them somehow and gather information on the assassin. God, what was he thinking? He was a hitman, not a spy. All the hits he had done before this were clean and simple: go to the location, take out the guy, and leave. Nothing at all like this.

Maybe it would be best to just wait it out, let the assassin do what they had to and then go rescue Fuches himself. But who was to say they wouldn't take out Fuches as well amongst all the pandemonium? He had to get to them first, he was sure of that. He just wasn't sure how. He was at his wit's end.

His shoes shuffled across the scuffed carpet before he stopped at the door to his room. He dug the key out of his pocket, the bags beneath his eyes growing heavier and heavier by the minute. He swiped it in the door and listened to the click of the lock before wrapping his fingers around the handle. He turned it and pulled the door open. He stepped into his room, allowing the door to fall shut behind him. Through his weary state, he noticed the lights were on. Hadn't he turned them off before he left?

"I heard you were looking for me."

Barry whipped his head around to spy a girl sitting on the bed and flipping through his copy of Gene Cousinea's _Hit Your Mark And Say Your Lines_. She looked up at him, and his breath caught in his throat. She was young, he could tell as much from her smooth skin, pale like a porcelain doll's. She had jet-black hair, shaved on one side and cascading down her shoulders. Her eyes were dark like two heaps of coal encapsulated by her face and piercing like a raven's. Her cherry lips pulled apart into a large grin. "Nice book, by the way."

He raised his brows, and alarm bells went off in his head. He may not have seen her face that night, but something told him this was the exact person he was searching for. He reached for the pistol he kept stored in the closet, but her voice cut him off before he could even get to the door.

"Don't bother." She put the book down on the dingy bedspread and picked up a magazine. "I took the liberty of unloading your arsenal before you got here." She shook it, rattling around the bullets inside. "This, however..." She reached inside her leather jacket and produced a gun. "Well, let's just say I wouldn't take your chances."

He froze, his eyes trained on the gun in her hand. "How did you get in?"

She quirked a brow. "The windows don't have locks on them, Barry." She gestured with the gun to the open window behind her.

He mentally noted that she knew his name. "We're on the second floor." She merely shrugged. When she didn't respond, he added, "Why are you here?"

"I thought I should introduce myself, since you've been hired to kill me and all." As she spoke, he caught flashes of silver in her mouth. Her tongue was pierced. "I've been watching you for a while now. I like to keep track of all the assassins residing in LA, sort of like the who's who of hitmen. You never know when someone's gonna put a hit out on you."

"I don't want to hurt you." He raised his hands in surrender.

She crossed one leg over the other. "That's rich coming from the hitman who's been contracted to kill me."

"Maybe we can work something out." He took a hesitant step towards her. "Let me talk to your handler."

"Don't have one." She rested her elbow on her knee, the metallic surface of the gun glinting in the dim light of the room. "I get all my business straight from the source."

"Then drop the job. I won't have to kill you if you don't go after Hank and Goran anymore."

She raised a brow. "I don't know if you know how this works, but if I go back on my word and tell the Bolivians I'm done, they'll come after me."

"Then leave town. Go find work elsewhere." He tried his luck and took another step in her direction.

She uncrossed her legs. "That's far enough." She lifted her hand and aimed the gun right at him so he was staring straight down the barrel. His pulse sped up. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't shoot you right here, right now."

His throat went dry, and he swallowed hard. "Because I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like doing this, killing people." He tried to level with her. "Surely you know what that's like."

She pursed her lips in thought. "No, I don't actually." She shook her head. "I'm good at my job."

"Well, I don't want to keep doing this for the rest of my life!" His voice rose in frustration. "I mean, there has to be more than this, right?"

Her lips curled into a smirk that said, 'I know something you don't know.' "You mean like that little acting class you take?" His blood ran cold through his veins, and her eyes glistened mischievously, almost cat-like. "Or what about that blonde? Oh, what's her name... Sally? She's cute, you know, in a boring and plain kind of way."

His hands curled into fists at his sides, and his jaw clenched. Rage surged through him, and he stepped forward, not caring about the gun pointed at him. "If you even think about hurting her, I swear to God, I'll-"

"Calm down!" She cut him off with a lighthearted chuckle. "I wouldn't dream of it." Suddenly, she rose to her feet. Now that she was standing, Barry could see that she was tall, only a couple of inches shorter than him with long, lean legs. "Say, you talk pretty big for someone with a gun aimed at them." She moved closer until she was about a foot away and pressed the barrel deliberately against his chest. "Right here, is where your heart is. I shoot you right here, you bleed out in two minutes tops. You would be dead before anyone would even have time to break down the door."

He looked her straight in the eye. "If you were going to kill me, you would've done so already. I saw how you took down those two Chechens the other night."

She leaned in until they were only inches apart, her warm breath fanning over his face. "I would've gotten Hank, too, if you hadn't have been in my way. Then I wouldn't even be here right now." Her face broke out into a large grin. "But, I have to say, you're smarter than I give you credit for."

She backed off and took her aim off of him. Once she gave him enough space to breathe, he sucked in a sharp inhale, betraying the stoic facade he had plastered on moments before. She giggled quietly at the sight. "No, you're right. I don't want to kill you."

"Why not?"

"Because I find you interesting, Barry." She perched on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. "I mean, who becomes a hitman, goes to LA, and then tries to quit to start a career as a failed actor?" She waved the gun around as she spoke, amusement written all over her features. "Everyone nowadays is so boring. They all want the same things: money, sex, fame. But not you, Barry. No, you just want a normal life, don't you? It's foolish, really, but admirable all the same." She lowered the gun and just stopped for a second, staring at him almost like she was mesmerized by his presence. "It's rare that I find someone I think is interesting. So, no, I think I'll keep you around a little longer. At least until you start to bore me."

Barry stood stock still, picking at the sides of his jeans and unsure of what to do. "So what now?"

"I don't know," she got up from the bed and moved towards the window, "but I'll give you time to figure that out." She flashed him a shit-eating grin. "After all, you're the one on a deadline here, Berkman, not me." She shot him a wink.

She tucked the gun back in her jacket and started to climb out the window. "Wait!" he exclaimed, causing her to glance over her shoulder at him. "If you know my name, it's only fair that I know yours."

She took a seat on the ledge and swung her legs back and forth, nothing but open air beneath them. "All right, I'll bite." She cracked a smile. "Violet."

Her name seemed to echo in his ears, reverberating in his mind. "Violet what?" He liked the way her name sounded on his tongue, sweet like honey and smooth like silk.

She shrugged. "Just Violet." Then, without another word, she jumped out the window.

Barry surged forward and leaned out of the window, holding onto the ledge. He expected to see her broken and disfigured body crumpled in a heap on the ground, a pool of dark, sticky blood forming around her. But instead, there was nothing. She was no where in sight. She had vanished just as easily as she had appeared.

Later that night, he got a call from Sally and rushed over to her place. He kissed her for the first time on her lawn beneath the stars. Then, she took him inside, and they tangled in the sheets. But as much as Barry hated to admit it, his mind couldn’t help but wander to the assassin who had snuck into his room with jet black hair and onyx eyes.


End file.
